They sure fucked up their interface. Their left menu list hides a lot of the folders you need to send things to so you have to try to drag down and unhide the ones that aren't showing.
The stupid chat box displays over the folder list so while you're trying to do folder things, the chat box is on top of it.
I have one box with an unread message but when you go there, they're all read. If you click mark all as read, it's still not ever read. Annoying.
Then their new icons for all of the stuff up top sucks. But the dicks can't let you have the classic layout if you liked it. I hate it when people force design on you that's their idea of what is better for you, instead of your own preference.
Registered: 2003-04-19 Location: Portland, OR Posts: 41
You can also force the labels you use often to show in the label list (without getting hidden) by hovering over the label then clicking on the arrow that appears at the right. Under "In Label List:" click on "Show" to keep the label visible at all times.
If you have a lot to do, go to Settings > Labels then change the settings on as many as you want quickly.
You know, every time I read one of these posts from you Nebu, I keep thinking to myself "He knows Blizzard does the same thing, right?".
That's not to say I am using the post as a venue to complain about anything. It's just become a reality of life that many software suites operate only in the newest version and generally aren't giving users much warning of major changes.
Being someone who will be facing this problem in the future (with our releases), I find myself seeing the sorts of feedback and backlash these sorts of pushes generate and often find myself wondering the best way to mitigate things.
There's certainly some differences between Google and Blizzard. Blizzard at least has patch notes where Google generally posts updates on their blog, but in both cases, only the tech swavy are going to know where to look for these updates.
It seems to be as a whole, the industry needs to me cognisant of the changes to their end users and how to migrate them into the new version with the least heart ache.
Particularly in Google's case, they really do need to recognize that much of their software has become a core component to people's everyday lives, especially in the business world (they HAVE been fighting to get their products recognized as such for the better part of 5 years) and really need to recognize that when they change something, it might cause a huge backlash in time tables. Often times people are on time table crunches and simply DO NOT have the time to relearn an interface on the fly while completing their time sensitive material. Google has had huge problems understanding this.
Registered: 2003-03-20 Location: Irvine, CA Posts: 3630
I changed the chat to the right side and it does make things somewhat better. I think even better would be to just almost disable the whole thing unless someone msgs you.
@Hammer - I couldn't agree more with your sentiment. I think the disconnect comes in the bureaucratic nature of most "big" companies. When you're a small developer you're worried about customers. When you're a big developer you're worried about #s and investors.
There becomes a huge disconnect between developers, paper pushing managers, and the public. You never hear about anything related to customers (and it isn't prioritized) unless the company starts losing money. Only the people with the loudest voices are going to get anything changed.
Speaking directly from my company (a huge hardware / software company), managers push schedules and try to overload developers with so much work that things just get lost in the fray. They're constantly trying to marginalize your work and cut corners so things like people complaining just isn't their concern. What they care about is when they lose big $$$ customers. So if people put up and shut up, the company will keep driving unrealistic schedules focused on bottom line: $$$.
When it comes to Google, I certainly feel that way. They have outlets to let you discuss things but it never feels like anyone in the dev team ever sits down and reads a signal comment from anyone.
As of now, you can write on their product forums or you can post a message to them through G+, but either case, I have *NEVER* heard a response back from someone who actually works for Google.
I'm honestly nearing the point where I am going to sit down and write a term paper worth of thoughts and mail it directly to Larry Page. If that doesn't work, I might turn it into a book entitled something to the effect of "This is how you piss people off".
